<old geezer voice>
Record high? Cooling centers? You call this a heat wave? This was a brisk, cool day back in Manila.
(Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit.)
Maryland Transportation
To figure out how to get to and around Baltimore tomorrow, I’ve been consulting WMATA, the MTA, Yahoo Maps, and Craigslist’s DC Forum. Now I think I know how to take the MARC, I know the basic routes to get where I’m going in Baltimore, and I’ve learned the “WMATA Bus Trick.”
Gee. How would I have done this without the internet?
Why Andy Warhol likes Campbell Soup
It doesn’t take a Freud to figure it out: Andy Warhol liked Campbell soup because it reminded him of his mother.
Camgirls and Enjo Kosai
Another feature on camgirls, this time from Yahoo! Internet Life. Page 3 mentions cultural similarities with Enjo Kosai, a now-illegal practice in Japan where well-to-do teenage girls trade sex and/or dates with older men for gifts and cash. Shocking, to be sure, but the parallelism is quite interesting.
No doubt, some of you are thinking, Why does this horny bastard keep blogging about camgirl “culture” and Asian sex when it’s obvious he’s just fixated on softcore cam shots of nubile young jailbait teens? Sick puppy!
Wait, wait, no! Beyond the usual adolescent fascination over the culture’s dangerous overlap with the far-less-subtle sphere of online pornography, what I find a bit more troubling are these words by former stripper Lily Burana: “Everyone vies for the attention of teenage girls — from men to marketing departments to entertainment industry tastemakers, They’re choosy, they’re sophisticated, and they’re cultural arbiters in their own way, and everyone knows it.”
Good gosh. Okay, young girls just beginning to discover the blossoming power of their sexuality, by virtue of their sex, hold enough cultural clout to be the trendsetters of our day? Does that sound accurate to you, and if so, just a bit scary? (Related angsty pithyism: “If hypnotists are so good, why aren’t they the ones in control? What if they are?”)
Well, perhaps I’m delving too deeply into something which could be a potential stumbling block, so I’ll quit it while I’m still decent. Oh wait, too late.
Baltimore on Thursday
I’m going to Baltimore this Thursday to scope out student housing options for the upcoming schoolyear. If anyone has suggestions on cheap furnished rooms for rent in the Bolton Hill, Mt Vernon, or W Mt Royal Ave. area, or if anyone in the neighborhood wants to meet up for afternoon tea and biscuits or something, drop me a line.
(Remember; I’m not picky about the rooms I live in, having come from three years of living in a tiny L-shaped box of about 10 m2. As long as it’s in a safe area and is furnished with the basic necessities of urban American living, I’ll be content.)
New Web Standards Project
The new WaSP is up. Also see ScottAndrew’s Netscape 4 “tribute.”
PunditPundit
There sure are a lot of pundits out there.
June 10 Solar Eclipse Photos
Dirty Bomb Drama Fades
The “dirty bomb” drama gives way to less dramatic reality. The suspected terrorist was actually arrested more than a month ago, the plans for a bomb were only in their incipience, and every single journalistic outfit has some sort of “Dirty Bomb 101” FAQ or multimedia popup on their front page.
The article also mentions Padilla’s “Puerto Rican heritage.” You really have to dig a bit to find even an indirect mention of ethnicity these days.
Starflight Classic PC game
StarFlight was the best classic PC game ever. Back in grade school, my brother and I would huddle around the old IBM 8088 PC-XT and play the game for hours on end, landing on planets to mine precious metals, collect lifeforms, and refuel our ship with Endurium, then warping out into space to interact with strange alien races. To this day I’m still amazed that they were able to fit a whole galaxy of stars, planets, nebulae, and spaceships into two 360KB 5.25″ floppies.